How the speed camera series was reported

Baltimore Sun staff writers Scott Calvert and Luke Broadwater spent more than six months investigating the proliferation of speed cameras in the Baltimore region over the past three years.

They obtained detailed citation data from Baltimore City, Baltimore County and the State Highway Administration, which oversees the state’s highway work zones. The public records requests yielded data on more than 2 million government-issued citations, including the date, location, tag number and recorded speed for each. The Sun could then, for example, track trends at certain locations and document multiple ticket recipients.

Howard County, the only other area government that uses speed cameras, refused to provide comparable data with license tag numbers. Its lawyers cited a provision of state law that the other jurisdictions did not see as a barrier to releasing tag numbers.